L is for the way you look at me
by DefiantDreams
Summary: "Can't you stay a little longer?" / It's time for Tobirama to return back to his time. Sakura understands that he has to, but that doesn't mean it hurts any less. Reverse Time Travel AU


"Can't you stay a little longer?" Sakura whispered. She gripped the front of his shirt, her eyes downcast as she avoided his. If their situations were reversed, if Sakura was the one misplaced in time, she knew with all her heart that Tobirama would never dare ask her what she had just asked. She smiled sadly. He was always a practical man.

Tobirama reached up and took her hands in his, the calluses on his palms rough against her skin. Sakura looked up to meet his steady crimson gaze, his gaze intent on hers as he brought her hands up to his lips and kissed her knuckles, feather-light, yet weighty with his unspoken affection.

"It's not that easy," Tobirama told her quietly, his tone solemn. His eyebrows were furrowed and Sakura reached up without thinking to smooth over the lines of his brow, her smile wavering.

"Just give me one last night," Sakura begged. Tobirama hesitated, his grip on her hands tightening for a moment as he gave her a forlorn look. Sakura deflated, her shoulders curling into herself as she prepared herself for his rejection. She was unprepared for his hand on her chin, drawing her head up so she meets his gaze once more. He was not the kind of man who showed his affection easily in public, and the way he was touching her said more than any word that could come out of his mouth.

Tobirama never spoke of love to her, and a part of her used to suspect that maybe he was incapable of it. He had lost far too much and seen far too many things in his time. But to call him incapable of love was disingenuous. He loved Konoha as if it was his own child. He burned with the Will of Fire. And the way he touched her sometimes, the gentleness, the way he looked at her… Sakura didn't know if it was just wishful thinking, but he looked at her and he touched her as if he loved her.

"One night," Tobirama promised. Sakura smiled. Neither of them mentioned the wetness in her gaze or the way her smile wobbled.

One night and they would send him back to his own time. One night, before under orders of the Hokage, Tobirama would have his memory wiped of her and of his time in the future.

A future where in only a few years time, he would meet his death from the Kinkaku Squad. He was at the moment, in body and mind, 35 years old. He had only just taken Team Tobirama under his wing, and his reaction upon being told he would sacrifice his life for them in 4 years to make sure they got out of alive was met only with an accepting nod. She wondered if this is what the Hokage felt like when they sent one of their shinobi on a mission they knew they would not return from.

The seal they had used was supposed to be a branch along the same lines of the Edo Tensei. It was meant for after Tobirama's death, for his body and his free will to be brought back to fight for Konoha. It was supposed to be an improvement from bringing back a mindless body to be controlled by the user. That was never his intention. His intentions were only good. He imagined a world where the previous Hokage protected Konoha, even after death.

Tobirama's notes were decoded, and the fuinjutsu adjusted. When they had deemed it stable enough, they used it the way it was intended–with Tobirama's body.

But see, there was a reason why Tobirama didn't push through with it. At his time, he had been in the presence of the world's greatest seal masters, and Uzoshio was rich with knowledge and willing to share with the younger Senju brother. Mito Uzumaki herself had deigned to help him. They had seen the problem in the fuinjutsu long before it could reach the experimentation stage, and both had deemed it too dangerous, too unstable. Tobirama had scrapped the idea and moved on to what had eventually become Edo Tensei.

Even now, even with the changes in the array made, the lack of any true sealmaster to see the mistakes had been a big mistake.

A mistake that Sakura would ask them to make, over and over again.

There would be no sleep tonight. This was her last night with Tobirama and Sakura was determined to make the most of it. Never would she have thought that she would end up in bed with the Nidaime, never in her wildest dreams. As a child, she had grown up with his face watching over her from the Hokage mountain, and in the Academy, she had learned about him. They had taught the children about his mastery over Suiton, his scientific breakthroughs, how he had been the one to create the Academy that was open to all, even the civilian children. The only reason why she was even able to be a kunoichi in the first place was because of him. Senju Tobirama had been the one to plan most of the city of Konoha, he had organized the first Chuunin exams, and ANBU had first come into being from his hands.

Sakura had briefly met him during the 4th Shinobi World War, and it's only because of that she knows that they'll succeed in bringing him back to the past. She knew too that Tobirama would forget about her because he had shown no signs of recognition when he had seen her then. She wouldn't know what she would have done if the Nidaime had approached her then, and she could only imagine how much it would have hurt him if he had remembered their time and known it hadn't even happened for her yet.

During the war, Sakura had admired him for his skill and for his strength. She wasn't quite able to see up close his fight against Madara and Obito, but Naruto had told her about how he had fought.

And now… in the past few months that Tobirama had been with them, she had gotten to know him beyond as her Hokage, had seen him as more than just Senju Tobirama, Nidaime, and brother to the Shodaime. He was simply Tobirama. Hers.

But not for long.

 _love_

He kissed her, and it was different from the kisses they had shared before. Tobirama had always preferred to be in control, and Sakura had let him, but now… Sakura was desperate for every inch of him, her whole being yearning to be as close to him as possible and it showed. She kissed him back, her hands wrapped around his neck and in his hair, as she settled down on his lap and Tobirama let her control the pace.

Tobirama was the kind of man who desired control. He was the epitome of pragmatism, of pure masculine dominance. Oftentimes prideful and arrogant, their early interactions were marked with back and forth's that made Sakura fume. She had never expected Senju Tobirama to be so full of himself and so bitingly sarcastic and… sassy. He riled her up so well and got on her nerves like no other.

The day he had found out she was waiting for Sasuke, he had bluntly called her an idiot. The only reason Sakura hadn't punched him in the face, future Nidaime be damned, was the fact that he had followed it up with calling Sasuke an even bigger idiot for passing up someone like her.

She had demanded to know what he had meant by 'someone like her', and Tobirama surprised her by scowling, crossing his arms and then proceeding to list out everything Sakura has accomplished. Some she had never told him, some she had.

It was no surprise that their first time together, he had dominated and controlled her, something she had never experienced, but also something she had surprisingly loved. Despite the part he played in advancements of Konoha and in science and jutsu creation, he was still very much an old-fashioned man who had lived most of his life in the Warring States Era. He was still a man twice her age who had experienced and lived through war from a young age, had seen his siblings die, day in and day out for years.

And so now, for him to relinquish his iron control and let her set the pace, it spoke volumes.

She pressed on his chest and he let her, falling back into her sheets with ease and grace. Their lips parted and he stared up at her, eyes unreadable and burning red through the dark. So similar to Sasuke's Sharingan, but Sasuke's eyes haven't made her feel like this in such a long time. The Sharingan gave her night terrors, yet the red of Tobirama's only inspired feelings of comfort.

Her eyes watered slightly at the thought that this would be the last time she would ever see his eyes again.

Tobirama's gaze softened and he reached up to silently cup her cheek in his cold hand. She tilted her head and closed her eyes, a small breath of pain escaping her lips as she reached up to hold his hand, trying to savor the feel of it.

He reached up and guided her closer towards him. Sakura followed until she was lying down on top of him, their bodies pressed up as close as they could be, even with the boundaries of clothes in between them. Their lips met, slow and deep yet with an undercurrent of desperation that tasted bitter. Sakura shuddered, her grip on his shirt tightening.

When his hands came up to her waist and slowly started to push her shirt off, Sakura rose and took it off for him until she was bare before his very eyes. She tugged at his own shirt and Tobirama slipped it off at her insistence. When she lowered herself back onto him, there were no more barriers in between their chests, just her skin against his.

He undressed her slowly, carefully, so different from the times he practically demanded her to take her clothes off, and Sakura knew then that he wanted this night to last just as she did.

He kissed down her body, the sensation of his mouth and his lips on her skin sending arousal tingling down her spine, all the way down to her center. She felt herself growing wet at every touch, every swipe of his tongue past her breasts, on her stomach, until his mouth was finally where she wanted it to be. She gripped his hair in between her fingers and arched off her bed, loud moans of pleasure escaping from her lips as his tongue swiped in between her folds.

He sucked on her clit and Sakura gasped, her thighs pressing on either side of his head. He reached up, his callused hands firm on her inner thighs as he pressed her legs open and kept her spread wide for him. He touched her with a devotion she had never experienced before, with a single-mindedness on her pleasure that sent her heart racing and made her breathless.

She finished with his name on her lips and when he moved back up to her body, she flipped him onto his back. Carefully, she rose up and guided him inside of her, her eyes locked on his. She could see his expression twist in pleasure as he slowly entered her warmth, his fingers tight against her hips and leaving bruises she wouldn't heal come morning.

And when they were finally joined, their bodies pressed together, nothing in between them, Sakura let herself cry. He pressed his face to her shoulder, his body trembling against her. Neither of them mentioned the wetness he left behind on the skin of her neck, nor the swollen, wet quality of his eyes. They were man and woman joined in body, and how she wished they could be joined in so much more, in life forevermore.

He would never let himself be weak in front of anyone, and this, these hidden tears of his was close enough to him ripping open his chest and showing her everything. This was Senju Tobirama at his most vulnerable. He would never tell her he loved her, would never allow himself to admit it when he knew he would lose her anyway, and so Sakura didn't ask. It took more for him, it was much more intimate to say something like that compared to the baseness of sex.

But she had no such qualms. She has always been an emotional creature, and she loved, and she lost, and she loved while knowing she would lose him. She loved him. She loved him.

And so she told him, she whispered it into his ear, she cried it out as he pushed into her. She told it to him with her mouth pressed against his neck, his shoulders, on the red marks that curved up his cheeks and his chin, everywhere she could kiss and brand him. She told him she loved him, over and over, even as he stayed silent. The only sounds he made were the stifled groans, the moans bitten back, so restrained even in his pleasure.

With every touch, every swipe of his hand down her spine and with every press of his fingers against her skin, he loved her back. Not out loud, never. But she heard him anyway.

And when they finished and he spilled into her, he held her close to him and looked her in the eye and said, "I wish I could stay." Even that sounded like it hurt for him to say, like it took everything in him just to admit that he wanted something for himself, just this once. It wasn't a declaration of how he'd always love her, not even a confession of love in the first place, but from him… it was enough.

They held each other through the night, quiet murmurs as they talked about everything and anything. Neither of them mentioned his departure tomorrow and Sakura was glad for the semblance of normality. At the moment, she could pretend that he wasn't leaving her, that this was just another night out of many.

It was a lie, but it was the sweetest lie she'd ever told herself.

 _love_

He glanced at the seal drawn out on the ground, ready for him to just step in and activate. Sakura swallowed. She lowered her head, her hands trembling, even as she pressed them to her chest in an effort to still them.

When she felt a soft touch on her shoulder, Sakura almost jumped in surprise. She looked up, just barely processing the look on Tobirama's face before he pulled her into a tight embrace. Her face was pressed up against his broad chest, his scent surrounding her and his warmth seeping into her. She hadn't even known how cold she was until now.

She wrapped her arms around his waist and buried her head in his chest.

"I wish… I wish you didn't have to leave," she hiccuped, voice breaking and catching, and Sakura hated herself for it. She hated herself for admitting this to him, for showing him this weak side of her when it was her strength that he had liked. She wasn't asking him to stay, but she was as good as guilting him by telling him she wished he did. His embrace around her tightened, and when Tobirama pressed his lips against her forehead, she let the tears fall.

"I must," he whispered, almost too quietly for her to hear.

He had chosen Konoha and its future over his own life. She's not surprised that he'd chose Konoha over someone as insignificant as her.

"I know," she replied shakily. "I understand." But just because she understood, that didn't mean it made it any less painful. She wouldn't ask Tobirama to stay or take her with her, no matter how much she wanted it, but that didn't mean she didn't wish for it with every cell, every nerve, every inch of her being.

They let go of each other, and Sakura looked up into his eyes. She smiled at him, even as tears dripped down her cheeks.

"Goodbye, Tobirama."

He opened his mouth as if to say goodbye, but he closed it quickly. He looked at her carefully, as if he was committing her features in his memory, and then, "I love you."

Sakura's eyes widened, her features freezing in shock. She had thought–she had thought that she didn't need to hear it, that she knew he loved her even if he didn't say a word, but no. There was still a little girl inside of her that yearned to be loved and acknowledged and screamed for attention. There was still a part of her that needed him to say it, and maybe she wasn't upset about it now, but she would have grown bitter in the future if he had never.

A part of her knew she deserved better than a man who never told her he loved her, and for Tobirama to finally verbally return her feelings… Sakura clasped a hand to her lips, a stifled sob escaping her.

He gave her one last, drawn-out look before he stepped back. Ino gave her a regretful look but still, she reached up to press her fingers against his temples. He kept his eyes on her.

Only 10 years ago, another boy had left her crying. 10 years ago, she had pleaded and begged for him to stay, and when that hadn't worked, she had declared her love for him and asked him to take her with him.

There was none of that today.

Instead, they shared only a sad smile. Slowly, as Ino pulsed her chakra inside of his brain, Tobirama's eyes slipped closed, the red disappearing, the last thing in sight still her.

Sakura didn't look away. She didn't look away when they placed his eerily still body in the center of the seal. She didn't look away when they activated it. She didn't look away even when the light became blinding, and as his body disappeared back into his time.

There was nothing left when the light disappeared.

 _love_

"Uncle Tobirama never loved another," Tsunade told her quietly and Sakura looked away. She tried to hide the furious tears in her eyes that threatened to fall. Even if she wanted nothing more than to break down and cry in front of her master, she kept her back straight and her chin up.

"He could have," she replied softly. Her hand rose and rested on her stomach. Still flat, but not for long. "He would have."

* * *

Prompt from bouncyirwin: TobiSaku, romance/angst. Time Travel AU. "Can't you stay a little longer?" "It's not that easy."


End file.
